2014-01

KOTA KINABALU(CS/Fr Robert O’Neil mhm).- Fr Peter Ma, a Chinese national, was born in the village of Hoi Yin Toi Shaa, Kwong Tung, China in 1925.

His parents and grandparents were Catholics. His father was Joseph Wah Chun Ma and his mother, Mary Lui Aah Ying.

He has four brothers and two sisters. One older brother, Thomas, was a priest and was imprisoned for 15 years by the communists and only died six months ago at the age of 91. One sister, Ma Shi Him, still lives in China.

Pope Francis’ call to seize with enthusiasm “a new phase in the journey of evangelization” by offering this new document, called Evangelii Gaudium or The Joy of the Gospel, to the Church as a map and guide to her pastoral mission in the near future”. It is an invitation to recover a prophetic and positive vision of reality without ignoring the current challenges.”

This is a continuation from last issue and is the final part of the Synthesis of the Joy of the Gospel:

If life is a journey from here to there, then would it make sense to know where we are going? Would it not be essential to have a map in this journey that gives us an idea of where we are and where we are heading?

I believe that we can discover our destiny in life if we look for it, in the right places and ask good questions. Our Lord Jesus is a God of revelation. He reveals and does not hide our destiny from us. In the next few paragraphs, we will see how we can know this. Hopefully, we will learn to ask better questions that will bring us much closer to knowing where our lives are heading to.

It is essential to know where we are going when we set out for a journey. Life is a journey. It is first of all a journey of discovery.

My journey of faith begins with my first encounter with Christ which subsequently led to my conversion to become a Catholic. I was baptised in Easter 2005. Before then I was a pagan worshipping idols, seeking feng sui masters when things were not right and keeping talismans for protection and luck. I was a worldly person in every sense, seeking status and power which turned me into an arrogant and self-centred person.

ROME(VATICAN RADIO).- Nov 26 – The Joy of the Gospel is the title Pope Francis has chosen for this first major document of his pontificate, putting down in print the joyous spirit of encounter with Christ that characterizes every public appearance he has made so far. The man who has constantly kept the media’s attention with his desire to embrace and share his faith with everyone he meets, now urges us to do exactly the same. To “recover the original freshness of the Gospel”, as he puts it, through a thorough renewal of the Church’s structures and vision. Including what he calls “a conversion of the papacy” to make it better able to serve the mission of evangelization in the modern world. The Church, he says, should not be afraid to re-examine “customs not directly connected to the heart of the Gospel” even if they may have deep historical roots.